Thanks Maria, Nick, Lina for suggesting this

Thanks Maria, Nick, Lina for suggesting this, and I am glad that this gives me the opportunity to do this, it allows me to look inside myself and try to share my thoughts. I would like to Start this first gathering with a little relaxation and thougt, and then do a little lecture, I guess for lock of a better word, and I would like to read this little presentation that I prepared these last couple of days, and then after we can all respond to it, share questions, if any, or express opinions. As I was preparing this, I asked the Light of the Creator to give me clarify for my thoughts and my words and I hope I can untie my tongue and be able to give a message from my soul rather than my mind. They say we are all channels of the Light of God, that we all manifest the wisdom of the world to each other, so I hope I can channel some of that light here tonight, and I hope that I can get your light as well. So, Close your eyes and take a very deep breath. Feel yourself present in the moment. Remember where you are. Try to imagine every detail of your surroundings with your eyes closed. Think of yourself, of how you feel right now. Are you tired, a bit sluggish? Do you feel perfectly find? Get an idea of how you feel right now. Now try to look inwards a bit more. Ask yourself: “Who am I? I am so and so’ son/daughter/ I am this and that. Do we get the answers…?? It’s difficult right? Take another deep breath and think from 0 to 10 at the present stage of your life, how happy are you ? Don’t have to answer at loud, just think about it and try to get an idea of where you are. Well, if you feel you are perfectly fine, contempt, happy and fulfilled with life, that is really great, and I am very happy for you. If not, if you think that there are areas of your life where you experience anxiety, a sense of void, emptiness, you feel that you are not quite happy, but you don’t know why, if you are often reactive and you experience anger and short temper and constantly snap, if you feel misunderstood, and you feel that you have everything you need to be happy and yet there are long moments when you are not, if you feel sad, overwhelmed, if you feel constantly tired, if you look for refuge in religion and the answers don’t come, or they just come for a little while, and then it all goes away again, when you think sometimes that God does not answer, or the line is busy, then YOU ARE NOT ALONE. We all face these challenges (who more, who less). So, ask yourself again, in a scale from 0 to 10, how happy are you. YOU CAN OPEN YOUR EYES NOW. DESIRE So what would we need to be happy…more money? It would be nice. What would make us happy…a vacation, a better job with more money and more vacations?? A better car, a weekend house, a beach house?? Think of what would make you really, really happy, more sex, better sex, to lose weight so that you can get better clothes, a better job, and then go out and have more sex, better sex…!!?? Yes, these things would make you happy or happier no doubt, but would they finally fulfill you? . And if so, for how long??!! I remember a Seinfeld episode when George Costanza was having sex with this woman and he thought it was really amazing. Then he would feel hungry as he was having sex, so he would smuggle a sandwich under the sheets as he was having sex and eating at the same time trying not to get caught. This went on until that wasn’t enough, he needed TV as well so he introduced a small portable TV as well, the perfect set up he thought. Well, he finally got caught eating the sandwich and watching TV as he was having sex and the girl got upset and left and he lost the perfect setup. It seems that if there is a word to describe us, it would be desire. We are a collections of desires, in fact some sages think that desire is our true essence, they think that we wouldn’t move a muscle if it was not done in order to satisfy a desire of some sort. We want things, and we want to experience feelings s and these things and feelings we crave, are the desires which define who we are. In general desires can be categorized in three major categories. Animal Lust: The most basic, which we carry in our natural instincts which includes food, shelter and sex. The second is not part of the animal kingdom, and it includes the need for honor, power, prestige, recognition, control over others. And the third is RATIONAL FULFILLMENT, which includes knowledge, wisdom, religious needs, love, peace, etc. We can say that we are all made up of a mixture in different measures of all these desires and these give us our individual identities. The essence of our desires is something I will call a VESSEL, a container for the desires that burn inside of us, and DESIRE is not just material, because we can be full after a magnificent steak, but no ,matter how full we are, we can always make some room for a small piece of a delicious dessert , and although there may be a limit to our appetite, there is no limit to our desire. We live in auto pilot driven by a constant desire to nourish all the longings that lingers in our hearts. UNINTERRUPTED HAPPINESS. So What is THE OBJECT OF OUR DESIRE?? A worker may desire better working conditions and pay and a deserved vacation, A scientist may want knowledge, but maybe he is driven by the need to achieve prestige between his colleagues. A comic may want acceptance and a good laughter to his punch line. But when you ask people to really take a look at what they really want from life, the answers are undoubtedly more spiritual than physical. The most common are: • Personal fulfillment • Peace of mind • Relief from Anxiety • Financial Security • Contentment • Love • Freedom • Control • Wisdom • Health • Happiness. If deep down we know that most of these desires are rarely achieved in the physical world, then what is that we really desire ultimately?? The answer is the God itself. But since God means different things to everyone, perhaps we should speak of just the all-giving aspect of this Divine Energy, we call God. I will refer to the sum of all of the fulfillment as the Light. It is said that geniuses like Mozart, Einstein, and inventors like Mendeleev and the periodical table, Singer, sewing Machine, Insulin, etc, etc, have all conceived these creations in a moment of a dream or a special connection beyond the realm of the normal physical boundaries, when our mind is so sharply in tune with the Light. So if what we really seek deep down is Light, why do we mostly chase physical possessions or (Immediate gratifications) in our pursuit of happiness? Through our faith we are told that that there is an all giving God, who is constantly looking upon us and is there, willing to give what we want 24/7, 365 days a year for the rest of our lives… So if we ask ourselves why is it that if we are fully made up of desires and if there exists a ready and willing GOD who wants to give us everything we want at any moment, why is it that we are not fulfilled. Why are we not getting it? Why is it that when we do get it, it never seem to last? ROOTH OF UNHAPPINESS. So think about it. What is the root of our unhappiness? Fear to lose what we have It seems we all have a lingering deep seeded fear that it will end at any minute, or eventually. (We say it’s too good to be truth!!) We always worry about how long would it be? This syndrome is called the fear to lose what we have. For Instance, in the midst of the vacation we start thinking about having to go back to work and we get depressed. Why ? We meet someone new and we like him/her and then we ask ourselves when is he/she going to disappoint us. Why is it that we are afraid to lose what we have instead of focusing on WHAT WE HAVE? Why is it that the good things we want don’t seem to last except when we are connected to the Light of the Creator? Think about it for a minute. If you walk out of here, and you go to the park, and you are sitting on a bench, and someone comes out and talks to you and clearly and without a doubt you realize that that person is Jesus, or the Virgin Mary, or Padre Pio, Buddah, or whoever form of deity you would think that would appear to you, and you would recognize and trust without any doubt, and He tells you “DON’T WORRY TONY, EVERYTHING WILL ALWAYS BE FINE FOR EVER!!” Would your level of worries change?? What about you constant need to satisfy your every craving?? We would probably let go of the need to accumulate money, or friends, or dates, or feelings. It would probably be a way more peaceful and layback existence, where we would be more caring about others and less worried about ourselves, with certainty that everything would be fine. But life does not seem to work like that. We don’t get a spiritual easy pass. We need to do the spiritual work in order to be truly fulfilled. So here we are in life getting small doses of occasional happiness and we are convinced we will lose it all at minute. The Curtain There seems to be a disconnect between the moments when we are happy and we feel we are on top of the world, and when we are simply down. It seems like someone just flipped a switch. Do we change? Are we different? I don’t think so. We are just as smart hard working individuals and we are as willing to be happy as we were before. So why is that we cannot be constantly happy? Some wisdoms describe this disconnects as a CURTAIN that is drawn over us which block us from the Light. Who puts this curtain in the way…is it God? Well not really, since the light of God continues shining over other people who are on top of the world at this moment, so what’s the story? Is it that there is just such little light to go around and we get the little we get, when we get it and that’s it???!! Well that doesn’t make much sense if we are to believe that there is an all powerful and giving God. What is the story then…is God not a good guy??!! Well can we think of God as being good or bad??!! God is perhaps not a big white hair muscular guy out there extending his finger to touch Adam, He may be more like pure divine positive energy, pure love, pure unconditional love and the will to share it. GOD IS, and period….Besides we could never be able to know in this lifetime the absolute magnitude of God. Thinking of energy, think of electricity and you do not think of it as being good or bad. If you know how to connect to it you see the goodness of it, the benefits it provides, the warmth, the coolness, the work it does for you, but if you do not know how to connect to it, well it could even be painful, you can even fry yourself in it!! So God is not out there to get us, or punish us. God is energy, like electricity. Yo would never say that electricity is not out there to get us. It is. So the reason we don’t get the benefits from the Light is simply because we disconnect from it, and even when we have it for a little bit we start to wish it away with our fear to lose it. Consciousness And we connect or disconnect from the light just because of a simple thing: “Consciousness”. How do we see consciousness? We are conscious of what is happening now, you see that you are here now , I am talking, you are listening and you are immerse in your thoughts. You see this reality judging with your eyes, ears, and the rest of the 5 senses. This is the process that you have developed for yourself throughout your life, that allows you to make decisions and to make choices constantly throughout your life. This is how we operate. Can you identify the voice of your thoughts? Yes of course, we hear constantly. There are usually two voices speaking to us. One is clear and loud. We hear it all the time. It is the voice of our mind. It’s the one that rules the airways of our brain. It’s the one that we respond to mostly. It is the one that reacts to our environment and to every circumstance. This voice is our guide; it represents us all day long. It says jump and we jump. At night this voice starts to quiet down a bit, when we stopped being bombarded by the noise of life with all the dramas and the problems and TV, cable, technology, etc. When our primary voice quiets down, then we could start hearing the other voice, the voice of our soul. This voice is our true essence. It is the voice of the infinite, like our soul itself. This is the voice which comes from beyond our physical understanding, beyond the reality of the 5 senses. This voice is reassuring, prophetic, it calms you down, it centers you and puts things in a different perspective from you other voice and it puts you in the right place to connect with the Light, because the soul is the Light, or a piece of it. We are constantly hearing the voice of our ego, such as every time we react to something. How often do you hear the voice of your soul? The voice of your soul knows what you need, what your body needs, what your life needs. We need to keep consciousness throughout the day as often as possible. It is hard work at the start, like the gym but then it becomes easier and eventually it will become second nature. We don’t believe any longer in miracles, but how great is it that we awaken every day?! What is the first thing that we think of?? Is it great!!!....Another day to enjoy life and the glory of being alive?? No…We say:”Shit, getting up again, going to work again…!!!! Making coffee again??!! Getting the kids ready again??!!! ….. We are tired every day. Even if you oversleep you wake up with some pain. You have little energy, Why?? We had dreams at night where our ego (subconscious)continues with the loud voice and the drama from the day. We eat something to get energy or reward ourselves and what do we do? We stuff our minds in a hurry to get it over with and get out.. Do we realize that what we put in our bodies is divine –Live- energy which we take to nourish us, to incorporate into us? No, we don’t. We eat because is a habit. We are like robots; reactive beings. We go to work. We maybe in a job that we really like, it’s perhaps something that we chose as our careers, and what do we do, do we give it our outmost? Not really, not always, we seem to be sucked into a black hole million miles away. Can we compare our energy level and constancy with that of our superiors, or to the new employees, to those who what they do seem to matter much more? Are we conscious of that? We go to sleep at night finally after a long day what do we do? We may stay up watching TV to get away from it all, to numb ourselves. We may fall asleep on the couch and drag ourselves up to bed already asleep. Do we try to hear the voice of our soul? No, we go to sleep thinking:”Wow, tomorrow I am gonna be so tired..!!!!” And how do you think we will wake up tomorrow??!!! We look for constant entertainment, for drama, we may get drunk or high to forget reality, to anesthetized ourselves, we do anything to not be conscious and then we ask ourselves, “why are we disconnected form the Light? God must definitely be a bad guy!!!!” So if we being to be more conscious of what we do at all times, we have more chances to take control over our reactive behavior and we start enjoying the light we get, no matter how little it may seem now. There is another type of perception we have where we also absorbe quietly the essense of what is going on on another level and this stays deep inside of us. This may be a feeling we get, or an intuition, which is not tangible at first glance and most of the times we just archive it in our body somewhere, either emotionally or physically or both. This quiet intelligence resides in us.... Reality “La Grand Illusion”…Jean Renoir So how else do we see consciousness??? We live life thinking of reality as it were not different than a movie, where we are the main character, the producer, the writer and the director, and when we look back and don't like a particular scene, we may are also the editor.... And everyone that comes into our lives is a secondary character that supports our plot. We write every aspect of our movie (reality). We are given a set of acting skills, and the free will to chose the path the movie will take. We have choices on the pace or tempo the movie will have the light or darkess the movie will have, as well as control over the humor, the action and the drama. We are in control of our movie. My movie is not your movie. You are a supporting actor in my movie, even if you may costar parts of it. In this movie every scene is potentially different. The perfect Tony or the bigest scumbag in me can be involved in my current scene. The perfect me and the biggest scumbag both exists in potential and at every moment. We create our reality. In essence, you can chose to be happy or sad, rich or poor because in our reality we affect also the material world and our perception of it. You don’t believe this? Look, a rich person may lose in the market 25 million out of his 35 millions and he feels like he is the poorest bastard, whereas a guy with a worth of 10,000 just maid 3,000 in the same stock market and feel he is the richest person on earth. So how real is our perception?? we define or reality, our movies. Also it has been determined in Quantum Physics that the aprticular behavior of an atom is influenced by the point of view of the observer, which means that even the material physical reality we take for granted is not as real as we have been led to believe. Some sages and deeply spiritual people think that this movie is not more than an ilussion. In some spiritual schools the physical reality is believed to be no more than the 1% of reality, “The 1% world, which can be seen, heard, touched, smelled, or spoken to. So what would the other 99%reality be? Something that exists beyond what we can perceive with our current brains, which use no more than 5% of its capacity. We make the biggest decisions and judgments of our lives involving our lives as well as the life of others. Ho arrogant can we be?! How egocentric we must be?? Think about it, are the views you hold today the same you held 10 years ago??!!! What about 20 years ago?? How can we then trust our current judgments? We need to see that there is a parallel energy or life force of some sort that runs with us, nourishes us and is the source we need to tap into and be connected to in order to fuel our minds bodies and souls, and consciousness is the first step to achieve it. Universal Laws Would Consciousness alone guarantee our uninterrupted happiness? No, but it is a first step. Consciousness would awaken you to your own spiritual path. You will be aware of your desires and you will understand your limitations, and the voids you have. But there are out there universal laws that govern us, that influence our life and our ability to reach our potential for happiness. We respond to these spiritual laws very much in the same way as we respond to physical laws, like gravity. I do not think it would be too helpful for the point I am trying to make to get into all of these laws But I want to touch on at least one or two of these laws: Cause & effect.(Karma) (Nothing Happens all of the sudden- You just don’t wake up one morning and find a huge oak tree in your back yard. Someone or something, I don’t know, maybe the wind, maybe someone else has to have planted a seed. The same thing occurs with the events in our lives. Every one of our actions has a consequence. If you push a physical being, it should move, you kick a ball it moves, you apply heat to water, it will get hot, you smack you face, it will hurt. In the Physical World we associate this to Newton’s Action-Reaction la, except that in the spiritual world this seems to work a bit differently. In the spiritual realm, TIME is the component that gets introduced in the process from the moment you do an action to the moment you get a consequence. This is called the Time Effect which is a necessary component to implement free will, or the freedom to make you own choices. I’ll explain: If we are NOT supposed to touch something AND WE DO, and after we do it, we immediately get smacked on our hand, and we repeat this a second, a third, and a fourth time with the same result, we start understanding the pattern. We will respond automatically by not doing it, not because we chose to, but because WE KNOW that we are going to get smacked. In the spiritual world TIME is there for you to forget that you have done an action and perhaps after we act selfishly, or we lie, or we do something wrong, we may even be rewarded by getting a raise, or winning a prize of some sort, so we do it again, and perhaps nothing happens, and when we do it again or again, then PUFF….The CURTAIN COMES DOWN and we get into an accident, or we get laid off, or get sick, or go through very rough times.. And we can never make the connection with WHEN the original seed of the oak tree was planted. And we go through life believing that Its a RANDOM and chaotic existence. No the reality is that the negative actions we do create a layer that will eventually disconnect us from the light and we do not realize it. The other law I want to talk about is known as the Butterfly Effect (Everything is interconnected) Sometimes we fail to realize that our actions have an unimaginable effect not only on our present and future reality, but also on the reality of the universe as a whole. I may come out of the L-Train and curse the hell out of the dispatcher on 8th Avenue, but this action not only makes me have a rotten morning, but it also creates a layer of negativity for myself (Cause and effect) but also this NEGATIVE ENERGY is unleashed into the universe. It hurts the intended recipient and it bounces out as negativity in the world, and when the level of this negativity reaches a critical mass, it unleashes something large and negative somewhere else in the world, an earthquake in Japan, a Cholera epidemic in Haiti, etc, etc. Are we really responsible for it?? Well YEAH…WE ARE…!!! The Curtains I will repeat it yet once more…. Every negative or selfish, egotistic action we do creates a new layer to the curtain that further blocks us from the light, and from the light that reaches humanity, because as we said, everything is interconnected. But is it bad to receive or put ourselves first??? Absolutely NOT. We are receivers….We want to receive. That is our nature. We were created that way, and since we were born receivers, we are reactive beans, we react to when we don’t get what we want or what we think we are entitled to, we get really pissed off, and reactive. (This is the voice of our mind….The loud one) But we were also created to God’s image, (Not an old man with a long beard and robes, but an endless and unconditionally-all giving force. Therefore, in some part of us we also have the deep seeded need to give, to share, just like God does. We need to be the cause of our own fulfillment, not just receive it from our father, from God. So if you think about it, this is the real reason that we can never be truly satisfied with only receiving, with TAKING, No matter how bigger and bigger our desires get, more money, more vacations, a hotter, younger wife/husband, a weekend house, etc, etc. We need to balance the receiving with the sharing in order to feel truly fulfilled. It is not just about being spiritual, not at all. You can be spiritually selfish and only look to satisfy your own spiritual desire. You could be a professional spiritualist that never does anything for others. This is really dangerous, because we then think that we are in touch with the world, but we are not. REMEMBER that this is a world of action and the sharing/giving has to be manifested physically. It’s OK to pray for others and that is great, but we need to get our hands dirty and share. Only by constantly giving we can continue to receive constantly. This is what maintains the Light circuit going, otherwise it stops for each of us and collectively as well. Open the curtains and enjoy the Light fully…!!! Cause & effect.(Karma) (Nothing Happens all of the sudden- You just don’t wake up one morning and find a huge oak tree in your back yard. Someone or something, I don’t know, maybe the wind, maybe someone else has to have planted a seed. The same thing occurs with the events in our lives. Every one of our actions has a consequence. If you push a physical being, it should move, you kick a ball it moves, you apply heat to water, it will get hot, you smack you face, it will hurt. In the Physical World we associate this to Newton’s Action-Reaction la, except that in the spiritual world this seems to work a bit differently. But if this is the case then why is it that when someone does a really bad action he or she does not get punished? Why is it that we probably do a great action and we get a bad consequence for it? It happens, we all know that. But we also know about karma; every bad action will get a proportionally similar consequence in term. Then why is it that when someone does a really bad action he or she does not get punished? Why is it that we probably do a great action and we get a bad consequence for it? It happens, we all know that. But we also know about karma; every bad action will get a proportionally similar consequence in term. Bread of Shame, Something that we have in ourselves, a sense that we don’t deserve what we get unless we truly work for it. Lottery winner examples. You sabotage your own happiness. The Oponent and the game of Life- A software we have installed at birth that helps us, and challenge us to remove the bread of shame. Makes it difficult to change, so that when we do get the fulfillment, we accept it without scorn. Masach vs. Tzinsum – Voluntary restriction for constant immediate gratification. (We do stop drinking or we will blow off our liver…Life will do it for you) Tikkun (Personal and Tikum Olam) Personal corrections we are here to do, for us and collectively for humanity. Butterfly Effect (Everything is interconnected) Door slamming-Monsoon in India Similars attract. Like attracts like. (The law of attraction)( The Secret) As above so below (Solomon’s Law). Same as cosmic actions influence life on earth, life on earth influences the cosmos….Black Holes…Negativity. Cosmic influences- Astrology- Numerology the block of creation. Cause & Consequence- The Game of Life Every one of our actions has a consequence. If you push a physical being, it should move, you kick a ball it moves, you apply heat to water, it will get hot, you smack you face, it will hurt. Then why is it that when someone does a really bad action he or she does not get punished? Why is it that we probably do a great action and we get a bad consequence for it? It happens, we all know that. But we also know about karma; every bad action will get a proportionally similar consequence in term. In order to describe this concept a bit better, we need to talk about the game of life. Creation: In the beginning there was the Creator and his intention to create the universe. Realize that the Light of God, is an ever-giving entity, whose only purpose is to give totally, fully, unconditionally. If you think of the sun and every other star radiating light throughout space in the universe, how does space appear? DARK, whenever there is a void, nothing the light cannot enter. What do you need to see the light besides the object that radiates it?? You need, and an object to reflect it like the moon, the planets. That is how you realize that the sunlight is radiating in space even though it seems that it is all darkness. That is why the Creator needed to create an object to receive the Light of God, otherwise there would be no light, there would be no reason for all the good things that he wanted to give un-endlessly. It needed to create the other pole for the circuitry of light. So God created something called the Vessel to receive the light. Then there was balance in creation, one entity giving unlimitedly and one entity receiving unlimitedly. This is what it’s called the endless world. The problem in this bi-polar model is that this energy circuitry, like electricity, needs a ground, or third pole. Soon enough the vessel started to feel bad about only receiving since it was made out of the same DNA as the Light, (Made to HIS image), he also wanted to share, to give, just like the light. It wanted to be the cause of his own fulfillment, and that bad feeling he called is referred to as “BREAD OF SHAME”. Big Bang This is the only thing that took place in Creation. God created ONE SOUL, the Vessel. Everything was included in the THOUGHT OF CREATION, In it there was you , me, the sun, the sky, LOVE, every drop of water, the planets, the stars, music, pasta e fagioli, everything physical and spiritual. When the vessel was unhappy and it could not tolerate the BREAD OF SHAME, it asked the light to STOP giving (Adam & Eve wanted to be like God if they eat from the tree of knowledge) . The light stopped. At that right moment, TIME was born. And in that tiny particle of darkness in the midst of an endless field of LIGHT, SPACE was born. When the vessel saw how dark life was without the Light, it panicked and asked the light to comeback. When the light came back, the vessel shuttered in countless pieces, which formed the planets, the stars, you and me, Love, every drop of water, pasta e fagioli, etc. (And Adam & Eve left the endless World and were sent out into this world, feeding from the tree of knowledge, instead of the tree of life). So what happened? We wanted to be like God, so that we can share as well. Why?? Because we know that we can never be happy just receiving. Like we mentioned before, we want a better, longer vacation, a better job with more money and more vacations, a better car, a weekend house, a beach house, a stronger drug, a younger hotter wife, a better everything. There is no true happiness only receiving. If we look into it you will see that we draw so much more fulfillment when we give unconditionally. Now what happens if the light is fully absorbed by the object? Well there is no light either, since it is all drained. All this an object to receive it Intention- But does consciousness alone guarantee our uninterrupted happiness? Of course not, we must understand some basic laws of the universe as well. The power of intention. When we want something we must make an effort t ACD 11.11.11